-- a) Thoughtfully and respectfully turning away from that which is falsely called knowledge, and b) holding on to whatever is true and worthy of praise
(i.e. notes and critique on the epistemology-related books and articles I am reading - with occasional quotes about the characteristics of knowledge, worldliness, and this world that is passing away...)

The world against me rages, its fury I disdain;Though bitter war it wages, its work is all in vain.My heart from care is free, no trouble troubles me.Misfortune now is play, and night is bright as day.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

There is no doubt that all of us have the desire to know. It
has been said that “knowledge is power” and while that is undoubtedly true, we
are not only trying to simply gain more control of the cosmos when we endeavor
to learn. There are many things in life
that we are simply curious about.We
seek “knowledge for its own sake” even as we sometimes seek to know things that
others around us may not deem to be appropriate, relevant, or even true. This was true of human beings even before the
Enlightenment.

That said, perhaps even this should give us pause,
especially after considering the metaphysical claims of the Sprint ad embedded here (take some time to look at it). Consider these challenging words from Parker
Palmer’s To Know As we Are Known:
Education as a Spiritual Journey:

Curiosity sometimes kills, and our desire to control has put
deadly power in some very unsteady hands.We should not be surprised that knowledge launched from these sources is
heading toward some terrible ends, undeflected by ethical values as basic as
respect for life itself….If curiosity
and control are the primary motives for our knowing, we will generate a
knowledge that eventually carries us not toward life but death.

But another kind of knowledge is available to us, one that
begins in a different passion and is drawn towards other ends.This knowledge can contain as much sound fact
and theory as the knowledge we now possess, but because it springs from a truer
passion it works towards truer ends.This is a knowledge that originates…. In compassion, or love (pp. 26-27,
HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, quoted in Christensen, p. 99)

In addition, wisdom would
tell us that some knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands, some
knowledge is simply dangerous, and all will agree that there are at least some
things we know (until they are shown to be false!)that
need not and perhaps should not be doubted!All this said, what does this mean for our conversation
about this issue of neutrality?Can more
be said?Is this something that we
should strive for at all, even if it is nothing more than an ideal?

While there are certainly times in life where it is wrong to
be “neutral”, I do think that there are times and places to strive for this –
and to encourage such efforts – as much as possible.By “neutrality” I simply mean giving a voice
to persons who attempt, by their education and reasoning, to persuade others
regarding issues that are very important to them and others.In times such as these, it is a very special
teacher who can hold student’s interest and is able to not tip his or her hat
as to which way she leans about what she thinks about this or that – even if it
is philosophically naïve to say that any person can truly be neutral!As regards libraries, striving for some kind
of neutrality – across a narrow or broad selection of topics – may not be able
to be much of a focus for some as their missions will understandably guide the material
that they select.That said, libraries
in aggregate can get very close to just this ideal, via the modern marvel of
interlibrary loan, allowing the exchange of perhaps very disparate materials
from very disparate institutions!

In the end, I think all real neutrality is impossible: we
are all idealogues, every one.The fact
that evidence which is public, relevant and convincing is (evidently) important
to many of us cannot change this fact – a fact that I do not think is
necessarily bad.The real problem and question,
I suggest, is what kind of idealogues are we?It seems to me that libraries are often made up idealogues who at least occasionally
like to have their views challenged, which is another thing that attracted me
to the profession.

That said, I can’t necessarily say the same thing for some other
persons of the “liberally educated persuasion”.Just the other day while listening to N.P.R., I heard a program in which
highly educated men – men whom I have generally found to be quite reasonable –
made it clear in no uncertain terms that “religious freedom” – that is the
practices which flow from the beliefs I have discussed in this series – will
need to be a casualty of the continued march of progress (ah, progress).It was a jarring and disconcerting experience,
even as I certainly am not ready to resort to feverish language about
persecution. : )

Nevertheless, experiences like these makes statements like
the following, from Wayne Bivens-Tatum’s book “Libraries and the
Enlightenment”, all the more interesting to me: “Devout religious believers who
also believe that everyone should worship as they do understandably dislike or
even fear freedom and autonomy” (p. 35)

Is it possible that the “devout religious believers” Bivens-Tatum
mentions might be a broader category than he thinks?Is it possible that the number of those who
fear “freedom and autonomy” might be more than he suspects?In any case, I am always curious to know
where men and women who sign on to the purely secular version of Enlightenment think
“the rights of man” came from – if not simply from the “will to power”!It seems to me that even highly educated
persons can be as unreflective about questions like these as can those who
produced the mind-blowing (or destroying!) Sprint ad above.No, if this series of posts has caused anyone
to even doubt the veracity of Bivens-Tatum’s statement above – as regards some
devout Christians at least – it will have been worth my efforts.

Just because I, for example, might have extremely strong
convictions about what is true – that I generally don’t think are good to doubt
– does not mean that I can’t genuinely engage other’s views and “learn from the
disagreement” (the Catholic Christian and librarian Gabriel Naude [1600 – 1653]
said: “God permits us to profit from our enemies”, quoted in Bivens-Tatum,
153).And it definitely does not mean
that I do not sometimes wonder whether I could be wrong about this or
that.And if even after confronting
numerous persons and books of the contrary opinion I continue to hold on to a
fierce conviction that everyone should indeed worship Christ, this certainly
does not mean that I need to, as Christensen says, “beat someone over the head
with [my] version of reality, truth, beauty, or goodness”.Much less that I need to, as some frequently
imply, pick up the sword about it if we disagree, i.e. be a “human[] willing to
destroy for the sake of their abstractions”!* (p. 79, 80, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education, 2004 ; see p 123
and 192 as well)The New Testament, after all, informs those who believe that Jesus
Christ is God speaking to them in these “last days” that their weapons are not
fleshly, but spiritual.There are some
judgments that only God is meant to administer.

But here is one judgment I feel confident in making: libraries
– and perhaps “Enlightenment libraries” most of all – are a wonderful gift of
God.

Soli Deo Gloria.

FIN

*though I certainly consider
Christian doctrine more than an abstraction!

Monday, April 1, 2013

The main problem with Bivens-Tatum’s argument, as I pointed
out to him, is that he is assuming that there actually can be topics that have
nothing to do with religion.To say that
this is not the case does not mean that religion needs to be explicitly
mentioned whenever a topic is discussed, but simply that it could be, because
“all truth is God’s truth” as one second century believer said.To a Lutheran’s ears, it sounds a bit strange
to talk about a Christian theory of economics, psychology, or physics – as
Calvin college actually does – and yet, as Christenson points out in his book,
this approach has often yielded some rich insights (p. 94)

Notice also that a lot of this approach certainly seems to
go hand in hand with some of the rich insights from thinkers like Michael
Polanyi, E.F. Schumacher, and Charles Taylor, Christian men who wrote, or have
written, for “secular” audiences throughout their careers.Michael Polanyi, for
one, is known for his observation that “we know more than we can tell”.He further asserted that knowledge was
fundamentally personal and always involved “passionate and personal commitment”
– and that we can speak of “knowledge as performance” or being “embodied”.No one can stop the passionate desire human
beings have to know, and it permeates the whole of our lives!As
Christenson says, “knowledge contains its own morality”.Needless to say, this means that the
Enlightenment efforts of men like Descartes (“the only things that can be
proved, demonstrated, and verified beyond a doubt can be called ‘knowledge’”)
and David Hume (there is a “fact-value split”) were, at the very least, “a bit
off”.It seems the Greek philosopher
Aristotle would fall short here as well.

So at the very least, one could say that the approach
towards knowledge that Calvin practices is analogous to the various feminist
and minority perspectives that have generally come to be seen as being valuable
when it comes to “the discovery and promulgation of the truth” (as John Hopkins
University, the first research university in America, describes its mission).That said, of course from a Christian
perspective this would not be going far enough – for the Christian “worldview”
would seek to distinguish itself from feminist views, Marxist views, etc.After all, it is not just another
perspective, but one that includes claims rooted in a narrative of the cosmos’
origin and destiny – and with human beings at the center of the whole show.

But of course, this viewpoint has always been vigorously
questioned by Christianity’s opponents.As
Bivens-Tatum implies in the statement quoted earlier, what gave the
Enlightenment project an advantage over beliefs that were religious or
political was its central focus on not only “autonomous” human reason and
consistent methodologies but also various kinds of physical evidence. As he says in his article: “Having
no publicly available evidence to support a statement is prima facie
proof that statement is false. The burden of proof is on the person without
evidence, not the skeptic.”Here the
views of Michael Polanyi become even more interesting.While his views can indeed be used to defend
Christianity from views of reality that do not give enough time to the
subjective, or personal, aspect of knowledge, there is also something that
tracks very nicely with these Enlightenment concerns in Polanyi himself.The fact that knowledge is subjective –
meaning that it cannot be separated from the experience of living persons –
does not mean that the “objective”, as we have come to call it, should be minimized.
In fact,Polanyi tells us,increased
“objectivity” is the accomplishment of personal subjects, who, having
been guided by apprentices, willingly dedicate themselves to making contact
with the external world.

Concerns about knowledge’s relation to objectivity are no
doubt reflected in recent comments in the N.Y.
Times from Mark A. Chancey, who is concerned about the topic of religion teaching
in public schools, which the law says is supposed to happen in a “value-neutral”
way.He says: “So many people who love
the Bible and read the Bible, especially in America, under the influence of
Protestant sensibilities, read it as a historically accurate text.”Note that while this man is concerned about
neutrality of some who teach this, he himself brings certain assumptions to the
table – and is clearly not neutral either!Of course none of us can be, even if we can in due diligence try our
best to accurately (and perhaps even winsomely) represent the views of others.That said, the most critical question this
example brings up is not whether or not persons from various religions believe
their sacred texts are true (in this or that sense), or whether or not it is
even possible to teach a class on world religions class in a truly “value-neutral”
way, but whether or not the topic matter really is true, in a sense akin to
what Polanyi says about objectivity.This question, of course, is always right beneath the surface, and it
can’t be held underwater forever.

I cannot speak for other religions, but
I find it very compelling that Christianity not only claims to be true, but
purports to offer the kinds of publicly available evidence that Bivens-Tatum
says is necessary.In Acts 17:31, the
Apostle Paul spoke of the fact and meaning of the physical resurrection of
Jesus Christ and proclaimed it as God’s “proof” to all men.In Acts 26, he notes to a fellow Jew that the
event was not done “in a corner” and that the words he speaks about it are
“true and reasonable”.In his first
Epistle to the Corinthians he says that if Christ is not raised the faith of
Christians is in vain.In other words,
when Paul writes of the crown of God’s interventions in history – the
resurrection of Jesus Christ – he states radical words that completely undercut
modern secular understandings of what “religion” is all about.So while it is true that Christianity is not
so much an ethic but an epistemology, or an approach to knowing, as Christensen
says, it is also an epistemology that cannot be untethered from historical
circumstances – from God’s own work in the past which has come down to us.It really is good “news”, as the word Gospel
implies.

To say it in a different way, Christianity does not just
purport to be a “way of life” on par with other ways of life, but the truth
itself – and further, a truth rooted in the empirical, that is, in past events
that really happened.Christensen says
that “hope is what makes us endure in spite of our realism” (130), but I note
the Biblical claim is that we have hope precisely because of God’s real actions
in history.First, Jesus Christ, the
self-proclaimed “Way, Truth and Life”, “took on human flesh”, and second, he
was raised by God to vindicate His claims of being both God and God’s mediator vis a vis all others who would claim to
be prophets of the Divine.As regards
the resurrection in particular, I think that the modern skeptic who would
question this proclamation – but would seriously examine it – will find that
the evidence is surprisingly plentiful and rich (for example, see here
and here).

If he allows it in his courtroom.If he believes “open inquiry” includes
inquiry even here.

In the next post then, we will finally zero in on this series’
title one more time.